Love and 'War': All's not fair in new HBO legal drama

It’s a case for all-out battle, which involves two law firms and the personnel therein.

In “War,” a new anthology series on HBO, the biggest posturing is in the courtroom: A tech billionaire (Dominic West) squares off with his actress wife (Sienna Miller). To up the ante, the lawyers seek details that could tip their fortunes either way.

The concept, creator George Kay says, began when he found himself near a woman who was “saying the word ‘yes’ over and over into the phone. Finally, she screamed ‘yes’ and hung up. I turned around, because I’m a nosy man, and I asked her what had happened. And she said, ‘The b------ signed.’ And then she told me about her four-year rollercoaster divorce. And she was so physically relieved by the news I thought maybe that’s the beginning of an idea for Season 1.”

In “War,” a staid firm, Cathcarts & Sons, competes with an upstart, Taylor & Byrne. The former, says director Ben Taylor, represents old money and “could afford anything and everything.” They’re housed in an older building; their rivals have a building that’s bigger and more spacious, but they’re overstretched and overcommitted.

The goal, after “War,” is to continue the series with another case, but with the same law firms.

Who’s good and who’s bad?

“The audience’s sympathy shifts,” West says. “The whole process of the case is that they’re walking on this knife edge between love and war, and the lawyers are trying to push them into war. He’s desperately trying to remember why he loves his wife.”

While West’s character is a billionaire, “he’s a benign billionaire,” he says. “I looked into billionaires. There are two-and-a-half thousand in the world and three of them are good. They’re usually the ones who give everything away.”

West’s character shows signs of redemption, but then Kay gave him a scene where he challenges a guy to strip in exchange for a million pounds sterling. It was a “ruthless, horrible, bullying scene, and it was great to play those two things,” West says.

Miller says her character “doesn’t particularly invest in other people’s energy in her orbit. She’s very much orbiting herself.” Then, West's character serves her divorce papers at a premiere, “and the gloves really come off," Miller says. "She’s wrong-footed, reactive as a person and she doesn’t do well with being backed into a corner. She’s quite vicious and I like that about her.”

Those attorneys on their teams are even more vicious. Archie Renaux, who plays one of them, says it’s fun to watch people squirm.

“Maybe I’m horrible but I quite enjoy watching that," Renaux says. "I sort of saw Johnny as this really earnest character, just with a real sort of desperation to succeed, and that sort of outweighed his morals.”

Kay says the constant shifting of loyalties will continue in the second season, when the two firms become involved in a defamation case.

“That’s what’s great about the show,” says Phoebe Fox, who plays a lawyer at Taylor & Byrne. “You think you’re gunning for somebody, and then they do something that feels indefensible. As actors, you’re always trying to find the humanity in someone.”

Adds Nina Sosanya, who plays a partner at Cathcarts, “There’s a certain detachment that these characters have to employ in order to do the job they do. You have to leave your morals behind and make sure that you don’t get emotionally involved. When you do, it’s quite dramatic.”